1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to electronic content management software and, more particularly, to an integration application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Businesses, educational institutions, and various industries often rely on computing devices and software applications to perform and/or manage their day-to-day operations. In fact, a particular business, educational institution, or industry may rely on multiple software applications to perform and/or manage their day-to-day operations.
Conventional computer networks and processing devices have the capability of multitasking and executing multiple applications simultaneously on a single operating system. For example, it is possible to execute an application for displaying and/or manipulating a document developed by one software provider on a single computer or network of computers while simultaneously executing one or more other applications developed by different software providers for the same purpose on the same single computer or network of computers. Because different applications can process data and documents relating to a common subject or context, it is often desired to seamlessly integrate and use the functionality and features of different applications simultaneously. However, because applications developed by different providers may store, index, and retrieve documents and other data according to their own proprietary formats, such applications may not lend themselves to easy integration.
For a number of reasons, many applications lack the capability for linking, accessing, or otherwise integrating documents and data with other applications. Due to the proprietary nature of software applications, traditional attempts to integrate different applications are often inadequate or unsuccessful. One possible solution involves using programmatic integration that requires modifying the source code of each application. Another possible programmatic solution involves writing specialized source code to integrate one application with another at a code-level through an application programming interface (API) for the other application that is used to push and pull data between the applications. This and other programmatic solutions are generally not desirable due to costs and possible trade secret measures preventing access to the source code. Moreover, it may in fact be contrary to the terms of a license or terms of use for a particular application to attempt to modify or integrate that particular application.
An alternative solution would be to replace the installed applications with a new program suite capable of integration. This solution, however, may be costly and disruptive.